Scotland’s streetlights will be powered by LEDs

By BizLED Bureau

Feb 18, 2016: According to leading official source, Scotland council will replace existing streetlights with LED lamps by the year 2017. Power energy saving is one of the top government priority and Scotland’s councils is planning to invest another UK£ 56 m in energy saving LED street lighting in next 12 months.

Scotland’s streetlights will be powered by LEDs

The energy consumption will be reduced by 50%, once the replacement process is completed. Currently, Scotland has 900,000 existing street light. For now, 125,000 new LEDs have been installed, and this figure will be doubled by April 2017. As per experts, over 65,000 tonnes of CO2 will have been saved by next year.

The total investment by Scotland’s councils in LED street lighting replacement program is estimated to reach UK£ 337m by 2021 and is forecasted to deliver energy and maintenance cost savings of UK£ 1.2bn and save 2.6m tonnes of CO2 in the next 20 years.

One of the prime example of cost savings and other benefits is South Lanarkshire Council, which has already installed 19,000 LED street lights. The program is savings UK£ 550,000 annually. The council is targeting to replace all its 58,000 street lights to LED lights in the span of next two years.

The Associate Director at the Scotland’s Council, who leads the street lighting program carefully explained to the government that the current program is extremely beneficial and payback period is very less after making investment in LED lighting. This period spans from months to couple of years.

UK£ 82m has been invested in last three years with support from Scottish Government and Zero Waste Scotland. All Scotland’s councils are at various stages of installing energy efficient lights. The authority is to help those who are in initial stages to prepare business cases and secure funding for new LEDs. This is to gain financial and environmental rewards once installed.

An official at South Lancashire Council is delighted with the news as the council has achieved the mean feat of installing most LEDs in Scotland. The focus is to lit roads and pavements as they produce a lot of carbon emissions and this move will curb the power consumption and keep the emissions in check by almost 50%. This will ensure better visibility and avoid accidents on the road.